How Often Should I Stretch?

I get people on both ends of the spectrum asking me this question. Those who are lazy, but still want results, to those who are focused work-aholics who would work their butts off until they burn out.

The answer is the same for everyone. You can stretch every day, but if you’re wanting to increase flexibility then you should be doing a deep stretch pushing for improvement 1-5 days a week.

Yes, you will see results with only 1 day a week! How exciting! If you are new to stretching you may even see a noticeable difference in only 2 months of training flexibility properly only once a week. The main reason for this is just learning how to relax in your stretches, and listening to your body and learning the difference between “good pain” and “bad pain”, and letting the “good pain” be a part of your training.

As you become more flexible you will need to train your flexibility more often to see the drastic improvements, however there is such thing as too much! Just like strength building you need to give your body time to repair for the new and improved you! The biggest consequence for pushing your flexibility and taking no rest days, is you will develop scar tissue from over stretching. You can’t stretch scar tissue, so if this happens you will have to get many sessions of painful massage therapy to break up the scar tissue before you will be able to properly stretch that muscle again for flexibility gains.

I recommend getting your intense session in at the start of the week so you can check that off your list for the week. If all goes well do some more, and if everything goes to shit you know you’ve done the minimum you need to do to start seeing results.

Schedule in rest days. Rest is just as important as training! Train hard and recover well!